Thought processes and conversations started under the tilted cap of Tropicana Field. Someday everyone will know the Rays play in St. Petersburg, Florida, not TAMPA, or the fictitious city of TAMPA BAY.

Results tagged ‘ masking drugs ’

Take you or I, trying to do our best at our job and we get a bit of insomnia, possibly want to rid ourself of some water weight or even grow some hair where it is thinning or showing trails of age. Those are everyday problems that plague some of us male baseball fans, but did you know those same medications can help mask steroids or keep any of us from producing a positive MLB drug test.

Each of the usually prescribed medications for those 3 situations could be blockers or masking agents to help you not test positive in a MLB drug test. That’s right, some of our own personal every day medications we as fans are prescribed or receive over-the-counter with or without a doctor’s script could make anyone of us potentially become invisible if we were to take a MiLB or MLB mandatory drug test.

With so many knock-offs of well-known medications, or off-brands on store shelves and register counter-tops, you could purchase a single medicine that could effectively help keep you from triggering a positive test without you honestly knowing the “banned” substance or potential masking agent was inside your purchase.

And to make matters worse, some National chains, on-line mail order houses and vitamin warehouses that can supply have supplements also contain borderline or active substances that would help you mask a positive result, and their products inert properties can sometimes takes days or week to leave the body heightening your time span to post good results.

The reality is that most of us, on a daily basis take medication or use medicines that can mask any form of a positive MLB mandated drug test. We all know the high paced culture of life today doesn’t mandate any form of abstinence from our daily needed products, or warns us of their extraordinary properties.

How many of us have truly read through any of those medicine pamphlets our pharmacists gives us we get a new medication? I know I usually only read the dosage and the possible side effects section then chuck it into the trash can. A majority of the drugs I will mention today can be obtained via a doctor’s script at any pharmacies throughout the world, and are especially easy to obtain on-line….for a price.

If these drugs were prescribed to you personally and you discovered their innate athletic performance advantages, would you still use them?

I am not implying here that you or anyone within the MiLB or MLB would use a scientific loophole provided by an over-the-counter medication to get an advantage, but if it can help give you an extra zip or punch without causing a bevy of red flags in a possible urine or blood tests, would you use it?

Let’s dive right into this hidden OTC medicine that might be hiding in your own home’s bathroom cabinet.

The first one up is the literally hair raising drug known as Finasteride or known by its brand name Propecia. Testosterone has a vital part in helping the body produce muscle mass, and this pill actually helps the body produce an enzyme that converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT).

The pill is commonly used as a treatment for prostate cancer but has a hidden medical kicker of helping eliminate hair loss and start new hair growth. But Propecia also contains a chemical that can be used to mask the use and effects of anabolic steroids in the body because of the overproduction of DHT.

For some reason, this medication was removed from the World Doping Agency list in 2009 and is not considered a banned substance anymore. Curious? Or does that explain why most Olympic athletes have a fine head of hair?

The second medicine under the heat lamp is Sidenafil Citrateor better known as Viagra. Most men might use this mentioned medicine to help the ill effects of certain body function which helps dilate the body’s blood vessels to expand and take in more oxygen and rid the muscles of dangerous toxins.

Viagra is really helpful in participating in games at higher elevations as it will dilate the blood vessels for the duration of the drug and make it easier for the body to adjust to the higher altitudes and the decrease oxygen intake associated with these altitudes. It can give a short term advantage to athletes playing games in the Mountain time zone, then resort back to their normal breathing habits after the pill is gone from their system. I think we can almost rename this medication the Colorado Cocktail, or am I being too glib.

The third drug I will expose/introduce today was developed to help the aging male population find relief from the ill effects of male pattern baldness. This drug also has been known to hide traces of steroids by masking the symptoms within it’s own chemical molecular bonds. Minoxidilor better known as Rogaine, is one of those drugs that is available right on our grocer’s shelf, and can be purchased with total anonymity.

Rogainewas first developed as a potential cure for hypertension, but its side advantages came to light when suffers began to see renewed growth in their hair follicles. It is important here to note that a common side effect of steroid use is hypertension, or a renewed state of anxiousness.

So it is easy to imagine that Rogaine can be used as a chemical mask to offset the hypertension as well as keep the hair follicles intact on the user during the duration of using the medication. This is also a drug that can be used in plain sight within any MLB Clubhouse and most people around you will not give it a second thought.

Now onto a medication that was initially developed to help combat weight loss without throwing your body into a severe crash diet scenario. This Drug is Liothronine also known as Cytomel. The medication is a synthetic form of the thyroid hormone needed by the body to controls our metabolism. Cytomel can be used by a sly trainer/user to get fast results via a six-week cycle to help get body fat down quicker.

It also helps its regain muscle mass so they can effectively hide any transformation by not gaining excess or bulky weight distinguished by an adverse gain in size and weight. This drug has also been known to be mixed with HGH as a cocktail to help induce massive changes within a small period of time. This medication can also be taken before a game to bring about a instant rush of energy without the side effects of a positive drug test.

And last, but not least today will be the medication Dutasterideor better known as Avodart. This is a true masking agent because it is highly effective in hiding some of the side effects of using anabolic steroids like the unsightly bacne. This medication can be taken in a cocktail also with Propecia which helps regulate the production of DHT, which is the main contributor to the formation of bacne.

Avodart acts as a masking agent to dilute the DHT enzyme and creates a buffer to eliminate this tell-tale sign of steroid usage or coming off a steroid cycle. But this is also two-fold as the medication also has a nice side effect of making certain body parts, well shrink in transition to its usage. And because of that, it can give a secondary sight recognition to the possible steroid usage.

But there are also other medicines that are used by drug/steroid users to mask intent like Methylphenidate or Ritalin, which gives the user more focus and puts them “in-the-zone” quicker. It was amazing the when MLB banned the stimulant in 2006, the MLB’s drug exemption paperwork for usage therapeutically skyrocketed among players.

I did not post this to have people second guess or even try and investigate any MiLB or MLB player’s medicine cabinet, then announce its content to the World. I wanted to show that even a person outside the game of baseball can effectively hide or even produce a positive MLB drug test without actively knowing it. I know I do not have to worry about failing a MLB drug test, but would some of you have cause to worry?

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